Eyewitness accounts: Journalists in Bangkok under fire

Firsthand accounts from journalists covering street protests
in Bangkok illustrate the severity of the crisis and the danger to the
front-line press. At least eight journalists have been shot, two of them
fatally, while covering the unrest in the Thai capital, CPJ research shows. On
Wednesday, police entered the Buddhist temple Wat Patum, where antigovernment
protesters had gathered. The
troops opened fire with live ammunition, according to local and
foreign media reports. Andrew
Buncombe in London-based The
Independent picks it up from there:

“That's when I—one of just a handful of journalists still
present at the temple—was hit in the outer thigh by what appeared to be several
pieces of shrapnel. They later transpired to be large pellets from a shotgun.” Buncombe
writes. “Where had this shooting come from? Were soldiers now deliberately
firing at journalists or did they simply not care?”

These are questions that CPJ and others will be asking in
the aftermath of the violence. Eyewitness accounts now rolling in from
journalists on the ground are filling in some of the gaps already. Buncombe’s
own Twitter feed included this update Wednesday
night:

Pleasant gvt official visited me in hosp Asked how I felt. I
told him I was pretty pissed off to be shot in a temple full of civilians.

Mark MacKinnon with The
Globe and Mail of Toronto was in the same Buddhist temple, Wat Patum, where
hundreds of civilian “Red Shirt” protesters had taken shelter after troops
routed their makeshift encampment early Wednesday. He posted
developments live:

Somehow we're the only corros left in temple. People around
us terrified. Red Cross can't get ambulance in to injured because of gunfire.

A transcript
of his Twitter feed, including photos, is available on the Mail’s Web site.

The Associated Press said Channel 3 news
anchor Patcharasri Benjamasa tweeted an appeal on her Thai-language account
while her offices were under attack
from protesters. “News cars were smashed and they are about to invade the
building.”

Canadian CBC News producer Cedric
Monteiro also describes getting caught up in the fighting:

The bam, bam, bam of rifle fire sends the Thai army and
dozens of journalists ducking for cover. The shots being fired are from the
so-called Black Shirts, an armed and militant subgroup within the Red Shirt
protesters.

Monteiro later describes seeing Canadian freelancer Chandler
Vandergrift taken from the streets on a stretcher. He remains in intensive care
today, according to news reports. Monteiro had recently met Vandergrift,
coincidentally, at the hospital bedside of yet another wounded colleague Nelson
Rand, who was shot on May 14. Rand has also described
what it was like to get shot. “I think I was trying to cross the line from the
army to the protesters, and then it hit me in the hand,” he told TheVancouver
Sun.

These accounts and others create a compelling if complex picture
of the chaos in Bangkok. It is now up to the Thai government to launch a full
inquiry into the exact circumstances of the deaths and injuries of so many
foreign correspondents and local journalists.

Madeline Earp is senior researcher for CPJ’s Asia Program. She has studied Mandarin in China and Taiwan, and graduated with a master’s in East Asian studies from Harvard. Follow her on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.